Day 3: Cambridge

Today we went to Cambridge, an hour north of London. We woke up a little early (a classic british understatement) to board the train to Cambridge. After a 50-minute train ride, we arrived in the town famous for one of the world’s greatest schools. Professor Christesen and his wife, who have recently relocated to Cambridge for the year, were incredibly kind and made us all breakfast. They made us 24 eggs (cooked excellently, besides the eggs, we had a variety of other food, including fruit, cereal, and muffins).

Well-fed, we went to the Classics Faculty at the University and saw some incredible plaster casts. Saphfire said the statue of Hercules could crush a watermelon with his muscular thighs. Weird way to put it, Saphfire. Then we participated in an engaging lecture by Michael Loy; he talked about pottery and analyzing pottery assemblages. He brought up ancient Greek pottery sherds from the Classics museum storeroom and allowed us to practice our categorization skills. Most of us had never handled ancient pottery before, so this opportunity was very cool. He also shared some of his current areas of study with us, specifically his interest in network analysis; and he was gracious enough to answer all of our questions.

After a delicious lunch at Clare Hall (where we all sat with active Cambridge students and faculty) we headed to the Fitz William Museum. There, we heard from two curators, and then practiced our pottery identification abilities. Paul Cartledge and Anastasia Christophilopoulou were very welcoming and helped us learn about Cypriot and Spartan cultures.

Afterwards, around half of the group stayed in Cambridge for a few hours to explore the old city. We grabbed a train back to London and ended the day satisfied.

We took a moment to be tourists in front of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge

Professor Cartledge was kind enough to show us some items from Laconia

The rest of our time was spent looking at Greek vases in the Fitzwilliam Museum